First he breezed past Sulley Muntari, taking advantage of the Milan midfielder's unwillingness to dive in and risk a second yellow card. Then he skipped away from Riccardo Montolivo, evading his opponent's clumsy lunge. Finally, he bamboozled Adil Rami, tricking the defender into turning his hips before slipping the ball behind him with a dainty flick of the toes. After that, all Miralem Pjanic had to do was beat Christian Abbiati in the Milan goal. He did so without even breaking his stride.

It was a stunning goal, a sublime medley of timing and close control. Pjanic's Roma team-mate Adem Ljajic called it "the sort of thing you only see once in a lifetime". Their manager, Rudi Garcia, defined it as "Maradona-esque".

"A goal like this should be seen all over the world," continued the Frenchman. "I hope that everyone can enjoy this goal, all around the globe."

If the online reaction was anything to go by, then millions probably did. No sooner had ball connected with net, videos of Pjanic's goal were being uploaded on YouTube, Vine and the rest. It was not only an aesthetically-pleasing effort but also an important one, setting Roma on the way to a 2-0 victory that moved them back to within five points of the league leaders Juventus – prolonging the Serie A title race for at least another week.

In short, it was one of the most memorable goals of the season. But within minutes of the full-time whistle at the Stadio Olimpico on Friday, it was in danger of being forgotten. All it took to nudge Pjanic off centre stage was a three-minute interview with Mario Balotelli on Italy's Sky Sport 24.

It was clear from the moment that the Milan striker appeared on camera that he was in no mood for a chat. He delivered clipped responses to an initial series of questions from Sky's man at the ground, staring at the floor as he spoke. But it was only after Balotelli had been patched through to the show's main hosts in the studio that his patience truly snapped.

The first person to speak was Giancarlo Marocchi, a former Juventus and Bologna midfielder. He accused Balotelli of being too static on the field, of failing to move as much as he should. The forward's response was abrupt: "In my opinion, you don't understand football".

Unsurprisingly, that did not go down well. From the studio Zvonimir Boban rounded on Balotelli, demanding to know whether he seriously considered himself to be a fuoriclasse – an exceptional, stand-out talent. "I think I'm a very normal player. A very normal player," came the response. "I've never called myself a fuoriclasse: it's you lot who talk about that stuff."

Now Christian Panucci jumped in to suggest that Balotelli could never become a top player. Boban agreed, informing their interviewee that his refusal to accept criticism would stop him from fulfilling his potential. "Your criticisms don't help me," replied Balotelli. "I can form my own."

The player pulled out his earpiece and cut the interview short. But the story kept on running. On Sunday, Corriere dello Sport ran with a front-page headline claiming that Milan had lost patience with Balotelli, and were making plans to sell him in the summer.

That same morning, Gazzetta dello Sport reported that the Italy manager, Cesare Prandelli, was considering alternative options up front for this summer's World Cup. "How will it all end in Brazil if against Sturridge [England] and Suárez [Uruguay], we put up Friday's version of Balotelli?" asked Luigi Garlando inside the pink paper.

It is a concern shared by many Italians. Balotelli had been anonymous against Roma, failing to register a single shot (on target or otherwise) in 69 minutes on the pitch. His most notable contributions to the game were the arguments he started with team-mates and officials. To reduce a whole season to one performance would be unfair, but this was hardly his first such listless outing so far in 2014.

The picture is not all bleak. Balotelli has still scored 14 goals in 27 games for Milan, and provided a further five assists. It is a respectable enough strike rate for a player on a team with plenty of flaws. But six-and-a-half years after a much-hyped professional debut, Italian football fans are tired of asking when Balotelli will grow out of his petulant streak. His nine yellow cards and one red in Serie A this season do not offer much room for encouragement.

He should know by now, though, that football is a fickle business. If proof were needed of how quickly public opinion can turn, then Pjanic was the perfect man to provide it.

Barely 11 months have passed since the Roma player made the mistake of suggesting in an interview that, while he was sad to lose the Coppa Italia final to rivals Lazio, he was at least happy for his Bosnia team-mate Senad Lulic, who had scored the winning goal. To Roma's supporters, this was an act of betrayal. All summer long, they inundated local radio stations with phone calls demanding that Pjanic be sold. Ultras showed up to heckle him at pre-season training.

Now they simply pray that Roma will be able to keep hold of him for another year. Pjanic has been a key figure in this remarkable season for the Giallorossi, the creative pivot in a three-man midfield otherwise loaded with enforcers. His goal on Friday was his sixth of the season, to go with the same number of assists.

Pjanic's contract expires in June 2015, and so far discussions on a renewal have stalled. Publicly, the 24-year-old has always insisted that he is keen to stay with Roma, but goals like the one he scored on Friday will only increase his market value, and with it his wage demands.

Then again, great players can also do great things for club revenues. It was reported over the weekend that Roma had already accepted 15,000 early season ticket applications for next season – a remarkable figure given that they only sold 24,000 in total before the start of this campaign. The return to Champions League football is a major factor, but so is the fact that this Roma team just set new team records for both points (85) and clean sheets (21) in the top flight.

Garcia compared the Giallorossi to "a good red wine"‚ saying: "We opened the bottle and it was only so-so. Now it's had some air and it's gone nicely". Might the same one day be said of Balotelli? Perhaps. But when a three-minute interview can cause such a fuss, it is hard to see how he will ever find the room to breathe.

Talking points

• Garcia caused a bit of a stir with comments made at his press conference on Thursday, when he suggested that too many teams had simply run up the white flag in their matches against Juventus – perhaps not even fielding their strongest XIs. Those words did not go down well with Antonio Conte, who accused his counterpart of having a "provincial" mentality. One way or another, there is little chance of Sassuolo taking it easy on Monday night. The 17th-placed Neroverdi have an opportunity to gain important ground on their relegation rivals after every other team in the bottom five lost at the weekend.

• Internazionale-Napoli turned out to be a damp squib on Saturday night, but the pre-game choreography from the home fans in San Siro's Curva Nord was spectacular. Supporters unfurled an enormous banner showing the open pages of a book, carrying a phrase that was apparently inspired by the English writer John King. "It does not seem that any TV industry is interested in the fans, but without the shouts and the movement of the crowd, football would be nothing," ran the text. "Football is a story of passion, and it will always be that way. Without passion, football is dead: just 22 men running around on a field and kicking a ball: a load of crap. It is the fans who make football important.

• Luca Toni's incredible season continues, the 36-year-old scoring his 19th goal of the season during Verona's 4-0 rout of Catania. Most of the audience were convinced he had notched his 20th, too, but his second on the day was eventually ruled by the league to have been an own goal by the Catania goalkeeper Alberto Frison. Toni's header deflected down off the crossbar and on to the keeper before bouncing into the net, but it was hard to shake the sense – even after multiple replays – that this ball might have gone in anyway. The striker, understandably, was quite disillusioned with the verdict. "I don't know how many cameras they used to find this own goal," he said. "I hope they are always this thorough."

• Either way, Ciro Immobile would have finished the weekend on top of the Serie A scoring charts after grabbing his 21st of the season on Sunday afternoon. That was enough to put him level with the records set by club legends Paolo Pulici and Ciccio Graziani, although they did do it at a time when the league consisted of only 16 teams.

• It is with great sadness that this column says farewell to Vujadin Boskov, the man who led Sampdoria to their first (and so far only) Scudetto in 1991, and who passed away this weekend after a long illness at the age of 82. You would be hard pressed to find someone who had a bad word to say about Zio Vuja – except perhaps José Perdomo, the Genoa midfielder whose talents he compared unfavourably to those of his pet dog. Among those lining up to pay tribute on Sunday was Sinisa Mihajlovic. "He was like a father to me," said the Sampdoria manager. "He was a teacher, an example, on a footballing level and a human level – one of those people who you never want to leave and who, when they do go, leave an unfillable void."